THE CINCINNATUS. 



VOL. I NOVEMBER 1, 1856. NO. 11. 



(Diir /nrngr (Urnps. 



' Oats, forty-jive cents per busliel — Corn sixty-Jive cents per bushel 

 — Hay, from twenty-six to twenty -eight dollars per ton ! ' Such are 

 the quotations at present given by the Cincinnati 'price current' 

 of the staples of our forage supplies. This is an approximation to 

 starvation prices — and this too in the middle of October, long before 

 the hay-consuming winter months have come to enhance the price 

 of those supplies. Why is this? Does the country afford no such 

 supplies? and is fiimine then impending over our domestic ani- 

 mals ? Or, is Cincinnati and its suburbs inacessible as a market 

 place for those supplies ? It would seem, indeed, that the Queen 

 City was beleaguered by lines of hostile circumvallation, and that to 

 secure a speedy surrender of her doughty burghers, no supplies, fit- 

 ted for forage, were permitted to enter her precincts. The country 

 is in no wise deficient in such products ; for, to our certain know- 

 ledge, at a distance of not more than two hours' ride (by rail) from 

 the perfume of her pork houses, oats are plentiful at twenty-five cents 

 per bushel, corn a drug at thirty-five cents, and hay abundant at 

 eight dollars per ton ! 



These curious facts have led us into some reflections upon the 

 subject of our Forage Crops : and we have been led to propound to 

 ourselves the question — how can we best economize the supplies now 

 usually provided and employed for our forage? What substitutes 

 can be found and produced that will tend to cheapen forage? And, 

 how will such substitutes affect the health, and development of our 

 field stock and domestic animals? Now we feel perfectly assured 

 that all good citizens having a barn-full of animals without a barn- 

 full of feed will agree with us as to the practical importance of those 

 questions, especially in view of the 'price current ' above quoted! 

 VOL. I., XI. — 32. (497) 



